THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN GE GA THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2013 MOVIES PAGE 7A in black, and in an color for light now versatile gal can evenly of jeans , you're where and red let the /KANSANall team it's now en with dressingust. It's aawk fash- s a team, Hinman 房子 Agent Banning (Gerard Butler) must protect the newly widowed President (Aaron Eckhart) from North Korean kidnappers in Antoine Funua's "Olvmus Has Fallen" Action takes office in political thriller 'Olympus Has Fallen' CONTRIBUTED PHOTO In real life, the White House is one of the most secure, wellfortified locations on earth. In the movies, though, it's a sitting duck. Director Roland Emmerich, whose fetish for demolishing national landmarks has been well documented in so-called disaster porn like "2012" and "The Day After Tomorrow," famously vaporized the Presidential mansion via interstellar death ray during "Independence Day," the 1996 alien invasion flick that remains both a visual effects landmark and the public's first glimpse of Randy Quaid's burgeoning insanity. Since "Independence Day," the destruction of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has become a staple for filmmakers and TV showrunners hoping to simultaneously establish the severity of a threat while appealing to viewers' sense of patriotic outrage towards any enemy, real or fictional, who would dare to attack such a hallowed symbol of American power and influence. "Olympus Has Fallen," the latest film to exploit this admittedly jigoistic scenario, is an intense, well-mounted action- thriller buoyed by a ridiculously overqualified cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo and a sadly underutilized Angela Bassett. Our hero is Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), a secret service agent whose quick wit and encyclopedic knowledge of takedown maneuvers make him equal parts John McClane and Jack Bauer, with a dash of Clint Eastwood from "In the Line of Fire" thrown in for good measure. Haunted by his failure to save the life of the First Lady (Ashley Judd) following a car accident on an icy bridge, Banning finds himself removed from President Asher's (Aaron Eckhart) security detail and unceremonially dumped behind a desk, with nothing to look forward to but sleepless nights and a thankless retirement. All that changes, however, when he receives word that President Asher and his cabinet are being held hostage by a band of North Korean terrorists posing as ministerial aides from Seoul. Their ringleader is Kang (Rick Yune), a nattily dressed nut job who plans to ransom the President (and our own nuclear launch codes) in exchange for the U.S. military's immediate withdrawal from the Korean Peninsula; an action he believes will spur the reunification of his homeland. Banning, who arrives on the scene just as Kang's forces are sealing off the White House, slips inside and begins to formulate a plan to rescue the hostages, including little Connor (Finley Jacobsen), a precocious moppet who regards Banning as a second father. One of the finer aspects of "Olympus Has Fallen" involves its handling of the Connor character, who in a lesser film would have assumed the role of Banning's gee-whiz sidekick. Plausibility issues aside, the initial siege of the White House is an effective example of carefully ratcheted tension and quick bursts of sudden, shocking violence. The plot may seem clunky and cartoonish, but director Antoine Fuqua knows better than to sugar-coat the particulars of a terrorist attack in Washington D.C., or the surprisingly timely threat of a war with North Korea. The action is gritty and fluidly filmed, with a refreshing disregard for shaky-cam and other obfuscating gimmickry. Here's a rare movie that proudly earns its R-rating. Butler, an underrated presence in "Coriolanus" and "RocknRolla", gives a solid, reliably stubby performance as Banning, slinging punches and world-weary oneliners with equal aplomb. Yune, best remembered as the diamond-pimped Bond villain from "Die Another Day," makes Kang a formidable heavy, especially when he starts coldly executing hostages (some of them Oscar winners). And only Morgan Freeman, playing a beleaguered Speaker of the House, could take a cheesy line like, "He's just opened the Gates of Hell!" and inject it with oodles of undeserved gravitas. A lot of credit has to go to Fuqua, a filmmaker known for cop procedurals like "Training Day" and "Brooklyn's Finsest." He clearly understands the importance of putting performances first, even in the midst of millions of dollars' worth of CGI window dressing. It will be interesting to see how "Olympus Has Fallen" stacks up against Emmerich's "White House Down," a similarly themed action movie set for release this summer. No matter the outcome, one thing is certain: our fictional presidents are destined to remain homeless for the foreseeable future. Edited by Tyler Conover MUSIC KU Wind Ensemble records new album ELLY GRIMM egrimm@kansan.com The University of Kansas Wind Ensemble has ventured into the professional recording world for the fourth time. The ensemble recently released its fourth CD, "Landscapes," on the Naxos Wind Band Classics label. The album was released March 1 and is currently available through iTunes, Amazon and the Naxos music library. "Our students were very excited," said Paul Popiel, director of the wind ensemble. "The opportunity to record on a major label is a terrific opportunity to leave our mark on the musical world." Popiel said the ensemble rehearsed the music on the CD for about six weeks last spring and officially recorded the tracks last April at the Lied Center. He added that the CD has a variety of music including a marimba concorde featuring University percussion professor Ji Hye lung and a piece by Aaron Copland called "Quiet City" that features University trumpet professor Steve Leisring and oboe professor Margaret Marco. Emily Bachert, a junior from Lawrence, talked about the new experience of a recording process and her reaction to it. "I was relieved and had a feeling of accomplishment to be done with the recording and my first recording experience," she said. "I felt like the process strengthened me as a musician, training me to focus intensely on each musical detail and how my part blended with others." "It was a very grueling process and very repetitive," he said, "but there was also a lot of pride in there in all the takes we did." Pete Walker, a second year doctoral student from Terra Haute, Ind., also discussed his feelings about the recording process and the relief he felt afterwards. 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